Get Action!

One of the coalition government’s promises during the general election was to introduce Military-style boot camps for young offenders, as part of their purported commitment to crack down on crime in Aotearoa. 

So far, the government seems to be on track to upholding this promise, and announced earlier in March that the first Youth-Offender boot camps would be set up around this time of the year. 

However, a number of critics have come forward in opposition to the government’s plans for youth-offender bootcamps, claiming that when they were first implemented in 2009 under the John Key government, they failed to improve outcomes and reduce recidivism for troubled youth.

For this week’s Get Action! Oto spoke to Clara Donne, President of the Criminological Society at Otago University, who’s started a petition calling for the government to roll back it’s plans to re-establish Youth Offender Camps.

The government recently made a series of changes to the licensing requirements for early childhood centres to be able to operate. 

These include repealing the network approval provisions for people looking to establish early learning centres and removing the Person Responsible Staff requirements to have a full teaching licence.

The government justified these reforms by saying regulation cuts would make it easier for early childhood centres to operate, thus addressing Aotearoa’s teacher shortage.

However, many Kaiako working in early childhood education have said deregulation does not address the root causes of the teacher shortage, and that more focus is needed on addressing pay inequality for teachers within the sector.

For this week’s Get Action! Oto spoke to Early childhood Kaiako and member of the New Zealand Educational Institute, Hayley Cross, to discuss a petition from the union to the government calling for pay parity in early childhood education.

It is estimated that 50 million people worldwide are currently involved in some form of slavery. Many of those who have been enslaved for their labour, and work as child labourers, produce goods that we import and consume on a regular basis here in Aotearoa. 

Currently, there is no existing legislation in Aotearoa that requires companies to disclose the source of their goods, or to ensure that their products are being ethically produced; giving them free rein to indulge in modern slavery in order to cut their production costs. 

Producer Oto spoke to Dr Susan Maiava, Co-Founder of the ethical directory Fair & Good who have created a petition and open letter urging the government to introduce modern slavery legislation.

For Get Action! The segment where we talk to people campaigning for a fairer future, News and Editorial Director, Jessica Hopkins, spoke to Common Grace Aotearoa Co-Director, Kate Day, who is calling on the Electricity Authority to better protect families struggling with power prices.